I've double checked everything but for some reason the export is eating my rhythm guitars (they are still there but really low and thin) and the resulting wave sounds "off" in general. This is not the mix I created. I'm exporting from 96k 24 bit to 96k 24 bit because I want to toss it in a new project to master the stereo wave. All mix enables are on. Dithering is set to none. Pretty much everything looks to be right. I need suggestions here because I am at a complete loss. :-(

Cheers.

I should also point out I'm exporting pretty much the exact same way I did with my last project. Only difference is that I'm using X2 and I have an actual MIDI track(s) for BFD and I have used sends on my lead guitars... but those seem to sound okay. So very confused.

I get this as well, I always have since Sonar 2 days. I double, triple check all my busses and sends and mix one thing and the exported wav is a very different story....

@UKJediKnight... Does that happen EVERY time? That would make Sonar impossible to work with and  pretty much defeat the purpose. 

To my ears yes. I could never get to the bottom of it. I have a good friend who's a real, proper, proper engineer and he could never work it out when I showed/played him what I meant. Its as though the mix I make is never identical to the final exported .wav, not always in a bad way. But maybe I'm still doing something wrong after all this time. I'm sure there are others who can identify what's going on, you just happened to ask a question that happens to me! I sometimes wonder if I'm going mad! Good luck, let the more experienced weigh in. PS. As an example, I just did a track with some flutes. I mixed them, spot on, exported the wav and the flutes were too loud??? That's what I get alot of.

@UKJK... Dude, that is brutal and completely unacceptable. If the export is different than the mix every time what's the point of even mixing? You really should get that worked out. Hell I'd call Cake just to see if they could point you in the right direction (I will if this keeps happening). Good luck. 

Anyway... I notice that for some reason the stereo interleave on all of my tracks except for the BFD tracks and one of my three bass tracks is turned off. I did not turn them off. I just inserted the tracks normally and they must have defaulted to that. WTH? They are mono tracks. My rhythm guitar tracks (the ones that are getting eaten) are panned hard right and left (two tracks). I'm thinking this may be the problem but now I'm worried if I turn them on it's going to completely change the sound and I'll have to redo the whole mix... after ACHING over it for far too long. Ugh... 

Anyone got some input here? 

were they midi flutes or audio recordings?

lolwut?

I haven't begun my Jethro Tull tribute album yet if that's what you mean. ;-)

Oh... I missed the flute part in Jedi's post. My bad. 

They were midi bounced to audio and normalised Swamptooth.